Cleveland Alliance for School Climate Research

Co-Principal Investigators: Denine Goolsby and Christopher Broughton (Cleveland Metropolitan School District)

Partners: Cleveland State University, Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD), and the American Institutes for Research

• the Conditions for Learning Survey (CFL), a survey of school climate given three times a year;
• administrative data on student performance on the Measures of Academic Progress (a series of assessments developed by the Northwest Evaluation Association) for math, reading, and science;
• administrative data on attendance and suspensions; and
• administrative data on student characteristics (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender, school mobility, receipt of EL services, and median income of census track).

The researchers will use the data to carry out two analyses. The first analysis will examine the relationship between school-average student survey reports of school climate and school-average standardized test scores, days of attendance, and suspensions. The second analysis will examine whether within the same school, certain subgroups systematically provide different reports on school climate. District personnel will then carry out qualitative research (involving students, parents, and teachers) to understand the differences at schools found to have large subgroup differences versus schools with no subgroup differences. The partnership will analyze the qualitative data together.

• increased capacity of CMSD to use the results from its annual survey of school climate;
• presentations, briefings, and publications on the perceptions of school climate by students, the links between school climate and student education outcomes, and a better understanding of differences between subgroup perceptions of school climate within schools;
• a basis for further research on school climate.